


Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

by AroArtem



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends, Flashbacks, Forgiveness, Gen, Healing, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Missing Scene, POV Catra (She-Ra), POV Glimmer (She-Ra), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25120135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AroArtem/pseuds/AroArtem
Summary: Glimmer gets closure for Angella’s death. Catra learns how to apologize. They both learn to empathize with each other.One scene between 5x02 and 5x03, three scenes between Don't Go and 5x07
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 117





	Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

**Author's Note:**

> The fic “Don’t Go” by Annacharlier is part of the canon for this fic, so read that first if you haven’t already! I chose to include it because I love the conversation between Catra and Entrapta and it also establishes a nice baseline of intimacy between Catra and Adora.
> 
> Title from Hamilton ofc

[Between 5x02 Launch and 5x03 Corridors]

Glimmer had a lot of time to think in her cell between escape attempts.

She thought about Bow and Adora. She wondered what they were doing right now, whether she’d ever see them again, and whether she’d ever get the chance to apologize for ruining everything and potentially causing the destruction of the universe.

She thought about herself. She wondered what Horde Prime would do with her, how much longer she’d be on this ship, and how much longer she’d be alive.

She thought about Etheria and the rest of the universe. She wondered if Prime would end up being able to activate the Heart of Etheria and whether the Rebellion would be able to stop him without She-Ra.

She thought about her father. Somehow, incredibly, he might be alive. Might. She wouldn’t let herself believe, not when the information came from Horde Prime. She wondered how he could have survived all this time and whether she’d ever get to meet him again.

She thought about her mother. She wondered if she was still alive, if she was suffering, or if she was lonely or bored, trapped between realities.

She had no means of telling time except by when her meals were delivered by clones. The days blurred together with almost nothing to distract her from her thoughts.

Almost nothing.

She heard the familiar sound of her forcefield being turned translucent. She shot up from where she was sitting on the floor, fists balled at her sides.

“Hey Sparkles.”

“Oh, it’s just you.” She sighed and let her arms relax. “I keep expecting… you know.”

Catra smirked, but her eyes betrayed her exhaustion. “To get escorted by a bunch of nameless, mindless clones to another one of Prime’s talks, where he shows you how he’s trying to kill all the people you care about?”

“Yeah. That.”

Glimmer walked over and together they sank down to their customary position, sitting back to back against the forcefield. She could almost imagine their shoulders were actually touching.

“You always do find the most charming people to team up with,” Glimmer murmured.

Catra hissed. Glimmer glanced over her shoulder and found her fur bristling, but she hadn’t moved.

“Sorry,” Glimmer said quickly. “That was unnecessary.” _Don’t leave._

“I suppose you’d have a more _noble_ play if you were in my place. You’d do something stupid and get yourself killed.”

“What do you mean?”

Catra was silent for a moment. “Did you know, just before you found me in the Fright Zone, Double Trouble stopped by. They told me about the superweapon. They told me I’d lost the war and showed me footage from the battle.”

“They did?” said Glimmer, reeling slightly from the sudden change of subject. She thought she’d best not mention that Double Trouble had been working directly for her at that point.

“They said some other stuff too, and… I’m starting to think they were right.”

“What other stuff?”

“Just dumb actor stuff,” Catra muttered too quickly. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re not even on Etheria anymore. If villain is the role I have to play to survive, then I’ll do it.”

Playing the role of the villain? That definitely sounded like something Double Trouble would say.

“You don’t think you have a choice,” Glimmer realized.

“Of course I don’t have a choice,” Catra spat. “What would you do, _princess_? What would be your noble play if you were on this side of the forcefield?”

 _It’s “Queen”, actually_ , Glimmer thought with a flash of irritation.

She pushed her feelings aside and considered the question. The only reason Catra wasn’t imprisoned too was because she had immediately pledged her service to Horde Prime. Glimmer would never do that—and because of that, she was in this cell. If she were able to fight, she’d be up against an enemy so powerful he’d already enslaved half the universe.

“I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I guess I’d probably do something stupid and get myself killed.”

“Exactly. That’s the problem with _princesses_ ,” Catra said bitterly. “You all always have to do the right thing, even if it means sacrificing everything.”

With that, she rose, put her hand on the forcefield, and dragged it back to the opaque setting.

Catra’s visits were always short—a few minutes tops. As far as Glimmer could tell, Catra seemed to stop by about once a day. Their conversations were sometimes almost hostile and sometimes almost friendly. They tried not to go too far in either direction. If Glimmer said the wrong thing and offended her, Catra would just leave.

But as much as talking to her old enemy was a minefield, it was also the highlight of Glimmer’s every day. Catra’s little visits broke through the monotonous anxiety of her solitude, even if just for a couple minutes. They gave her something to look forward to and a sense that she was not completely, entirely alone. For that, she was grateful.

She wanted to hate Catra. Part of her did hate Catra, but that part of her grew smaller and smaller with each visit. The more she actually talked to Catra, the more she realized Catra wasn’t an evil monster bent on destruction. She wasn’t like Horde Prime or his mind-controlled clones. She was just a person.

She was the person who had opened the portal her mother was now stuck in forever.

Wasn’t that unforgivable?

How could Glimmer be considering forgiveness?

“Ughhh!” Glimmer grabbed her chair and lobbed it at the forcefield in frustration. The chair bounced off harmlessly and skittered on the floor.

It didn’t make sense. What was she supposed to think? Wasn’t it a betrayal of her mother’s memory to let Catra off the hook? _Why couldn’t she use magic in space??_

She sighed and collapsed backwards onto the raised platform which she assumed was supposed to be her bed. She folded her hands behind her head as she lay back and stared at the ceiling.

What did she know about Catra? Catra had been Adora’s best friend once. And before she turned super evil, she was just incredibly irritating. Glimmer wouldn’t have guessed that the _annoying_ girl she and Bow kidnapped once would turn out to be the second-most powerful adversary she would ever encounter.

What else? Double Trouble had said something to Catra about her “playing the villain”. Did they think she was just acting? Even after all the terrible stuff she’d done?

Then when Glimmer had shown up, Catra had just given up.

_What are you waiting for? Do it._

_Looks like we’re both alone, Sparkles._

Glimmer shivered. She didn’t know what she would have done if the Heart of Etheria hadn’t activated right then. She had not been expecting to feel pity for Catra in her moment of victory. Catra had invested her whole life in the Horde, and then Glimmer and Double Trouble’s plan had destroyed that life in a single day, right when she believed she was on the brink of victory.

Would Catra even want to leave the ship if it were possible? She had no life to return to.

Glimmer groaned and brought her hands out from under her head to cross her elbows over her face.

If Catra was just a regular person, then why did she open the portal? _Why_ did she do that? What stupid, irrational line of reasoning was responsible for Glimmer’s mother’s disappearance?

And… did she regret it?

Those were the questions Glimmer didn’t know the answers to.

So Glimmer finalized her image of Catra in her head. Catra had presumably started off as an okay person, Adora’s best friend. Then she’d turned into a very annoying nemesis after Adora joined the Rebellion. Then she’d turned into a supervillain and opened the portal that took Glimmer’s mother away. Then Glimmer and the Rebellion had beaten the Horde and broken her life. Now Catra was trapped on this ship, out of options, playing the role of the villain.

And Glimmer? Glimmer was here too, still alive for now but who knew how long that would last, a prisoner of an evil mind-controlling intergalactic overlord, with no one but the girl who opened the portal for company.

Stars. It was almost comical how messed up it was. They had each done so much damage to each other’s lives… and yet here they were. Almost friends. Almost allies. Each the only part the other had left of their home planet.

“See you tomorrow, Horde Scum,” she whispered into her empty cell.

[Between Don’t Go – Annacharlier (post 5x06) and 5x07 Perils of Peekablue]

“I win!” Adora crowed triumphantly.

“Congratulations, brother,” said Wrong Hordak.

“You do? Um, shoot,” said Glimmer.

“Oh well! This was a fun game!” Entrapta chirped loudly.

“It was a weird game,” muttered Catra.

“But the pieces are cute,” admired Bow, picking up a tiny figurine of Wrong Hordak.

They were sitting in a circle on the floor of the control room around the game board. The game was a collaborative effort between Adora and Bow, born out of sheer boredom. Adora had written the rules and drawn the board, and Bow had made little figurines of each of them to serve as game pieces. He already had figurines for himself, Adora, and Glimmer—apparently they used these in battle planning? No wonder they were so easy to defeat, Catra thought. But seeing her cute little figurine on the board with all the others did make her feel warm inside.

“I have to agree with Catra on this one,” said Glimmer. “The rules make no sense. Maybe we could work _together_ to rewrite them?”

“They do make sense! You guys just don’t understand strategy!” cried Adora.

“Hmm… no, I think Glimmer’s right,” said Entrapta, examining the hand-scrawled rule sheet. “Several rules actually seem to directly contradict each other, if I’m interpreting this correctly.”

Adora sputtered indignantly and Bow laughed. Catra caught Glimmer’s eye and they shared a smirk—then Glimmer’s face abruptly fell as if she had suddenly remembered something unpleasant. She looked back down at the game board.

Catra’s smirk vanished as quickly as Glimmer’s, along with the warm feeling. _Shit, did I do something wrong? She doesn’t want me here, she hasn’t forgiven me, I have to go—_

“Well congrats on your win, even if the rules made no sense,” said Glimmer. “I think I’m gonna head to bed early.” She yawned unconvincingly. Was she avoiding eye contact with Catra?

“Um, yeah, me too,” Catra said quickly. She sprang up and was out the door before Glimmer could even get up.

She knew they were all looking at each other and would probably start talking about her _erratic behaviour_ as soon as the door closed behind her, but she’d deal with that later. She headed automatically for the dim purple room she had initially recovered in. Her cot was still there. She slept with everyone else in the bunk room now, curled up at the foot of Adora’s bed like old times, but they hadn’t repurposed this room—they’d left it as her personal space to go to be alone. She was grateful for that.

She shut the door and lay down on the cot.

Glimmer hadn’t forgiven her. She was almost sure that was real now, not just another paranoid perception. Today’s incident was just the latest in a series of similar incidents that had started as soon as all the craziness of escaping Horde Prime was over. Glimmer seemed to be really trying to include Catra, sometimes going out of her way to do so, but then occasionally she’d have these little moments where she remembered who Catra was. That she was the enemy, and she wasn’t worthy of her friendship.

Entrapta had verbally told Catra she forgave her. Adora had made it pretty clear for her part as well. Bow was always talking about how they were _friends_ and teasing her (even if he did bring up the cliff incident a little more often than was entirely necessary). They could all hold her gaze. But not Glimmer. Catra felt like the forcefield between them had only grown stronger since they’d escaped Prime’s ship.

There was a small knock on her door. Adora. No one else would bother her in her room. She hesitated, then sat up.

“Come in.”

The door opened and Adora came in, shutting the door behind her.

“Hey,” she said. “Is everything okay? You left pretty suddenly so I just wanted to check.” She sat on the bed beside Catra.

“I’m fine,” muttered Catra, looking away.

“Catra…”

A familiar burst of anger flashed behind Catra’s eyes. “I said I’m fine!”

Adora flinched and Catra immediately regretted the outburst.

“Sorry. …That was unnecessary,” she mumbled. Apologies still tasted bitter in her mouth, but she was getting used to it. The words were Glimmer’s. They’d made her feel a little bit better when Glimmer had said them to her on Prime’s ship, so she supposed they must be good apology words. “I’m just trying to figure something out right now.”

“Okay… do you wanna talk about it?”

Adora slowly reached over and placed her hand on one of Catra’s fists. The fist loosened automatically at her touch and Adora laced their fingers together, letting their hands sit on Catra’s lap.

Catra stared at their hands. She had a sudden urge to jerk hers away and yell at Adora to _leave_ and she’d solve the problem on her own like she always did. Holding hands with Adora, accepting her help… that was weakness. It made her vulnerable to attack, manipulation, and hurt. It went against everything the Horde ever taught her.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? The Horde was the enemy now. Everything it had taught her was wrong… wasn’t it? Was it? She still wasn’t sure what to believe.

Entrapta’s words from a few days ago echoed in her head:

_I think they came back for me because they believed that I could be better. They wouldn’t leave me, even when I asked them to. So I decided I wanted to be the person they thought I was. At first, I didn’t know how. I kept messing it up. But they didn’t give up on me. I don’t think they’ve given up on you, either. I think you just have to… keep trying._

She had to keep trying to be the person they thought she could be. And that person would trust Adora. Right? Adora wouldn’t take advantage of her weakness, right? She wasn’t 100% sure, but she thought that seemed right. Adora wouldn’t leave her again.

Adora was still waiting patiently for an answer. Catra started absently rubbing Adora’s thumb with her own as she tried to think of the right words. Her brain wasn’t working properly. The Horde part of her brain was still yelling at her to shove Adora away, and some other part of her brain was fixated numbly on the warmth of Adora’s hand in hers and how close she was beside her. Both parts agreed: she didn’t want to think about her problems. But she had to keep trying.

Finally, she managed to say hoarsely, “She hasn’t forgiven me.”

“Who?” frowned Adora.

“Glimmer.” Catra had never said Glimmer’s name out loud before. It felt weird.

“What? Sure she has! When Glimmer has a grudge she’s pretty obvious about it. She likes you, she includes you in—”

“No, Adora,” Catra interrupted, looking up at her. “She doesn’t like me. You must have noticed too. It’s like… she tries to be friendly with me because she thinks it’s the right thing to do, but she doesn’t actually like me or want me around. The act slips sometimes.”

“But…” Adora trailed off, frowning.

Catra addressed their hands again. “When we were on Prime’s ship together, we talked sometimes.”

She felt Adora go still beside her, attentive. Catra had never talked about her time on the ship from before Horde Prime chipped her.

“I’d go visit her cell once a day, even though Prime told me not to,” Catra continued quietly. “Random times each day, and we’d only talk for a few minutes and then I’d leave so Prime wouldn’t catch me. I knew he probably did actually know about it—y’know, _Prime knows all_ and everything—but I did it anyway. It was like,” she gave a weak laugh, “fuck it, we’re gonna die out here anyway so we can at least die having someone to talk to, right? Trapped on an alien spaceship—none of it even felt real. I think that made it easier for both of us. I mean, it’s not like we would elect to spend time together in real life.” Her eyes stung, but she couldn’t stop now. The words were begging to be spoken. “And even though she was the only person around for me to talk to, I actually _liked_ talking to her. Turns out she’s actually kind of cool. I’d spent so long thinking of her as this one-dimensional stupid _princess_ with her pink everything and _sparkle magic_. She was the living embodiment of everything I hated. But she’s actually just a person. And I—” Catra’s throat constricted. “I’m the reason she doesn’t have a mom anymore.”

Adora gasped softly and her grip tightened on Catra’s hand. “Catra…” she tried, but she seemed at a loss for words.

“How—” Catra choked, but then the real sobs came and she couldn’t finish the thought. She stopped trying to hold in the tears and let them spill down her cheeks. Adora scooched over and wrapped Catra in her arms, silently pulling her close and squeezing hard. Catra squeezed back as her tears soaked into the shoulder of Adora’s jacket.

After a minute, Catra loosened her arms and pulled back slightly. She forced herself to look into Adora’s eyes, which she found were brimming with tears as well.

“How do I apologize for that?” she croaked. “How can I possibly apologize for that?”

“…I don’t know,” Adora whispered.

Catra squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face back in Adora’s shoulder.

“You can’t take all the blame yourself,” came Adora’s strained voice. “I was the one who should’ve—”

Catra drew her head back up sharply. “No. This is not on you. Neither of you would have been in that situation if I hadn’t pulled the switch.”

Catra knew Adora. She always thought everything was her own fault, the result of her not being good enough or sacrificing enough. She wanted to alleviate Catra’s burden by taking it on herself—yet another self-sacrifice. Well, not this time.

“It’s not your fault, Adora. It’s mine. You and the queen saved Etheria from my stupid mistake. You’re both heroes. Yes, even though you failed to sacrifice yourself for the greater good.” She fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She was just stating the facts. The queen’s fate was her fault, not Adora’s. Adora needed to understand that.

Adora blinked and the tears fell down her face. She stared at Catra, at a loss again. The idea of not being at fault for something probably broke her dumb brain.

Catra took a deep breath. She broke their loose embrace and took Adora’s hand in both of her own instead. “Please, Adora, can you just… help me figure out how to do this? I want to make it right. I don’t know if that’s even possible, but I want to try. I want Sparkles to know that I’m sorry, and I know if I try to do it on my own I’ll—I’ll mess it up somehow. I’m trying to be a better person but I’m no good at it yet. So will you help me fix this?”

Adora’s tear-streaked face softened into a small smile so full of fondness it made Catra’s heart flutter. She sniffed and used her free arm to wipe her eyes.

“Okay. We’ll figure it out together.”

Catra’s heart threatened to beat right out of her chest as she padded down the hall the next day. The Horde part of her brain was screaming at her to turn around but she kept going, so wrapped up in her mental civil war that she barely paid attention to where her feet were taking her. Before she knew it she had arrived at the door to the bunk room. She knew Glimmer was inside, alone. It was Adora’s day to pilot (AKA chill in the control room and make sure autopilot didn’t get them killed), but she’d asked Bow to take over for her for a couple hours while she trained with her staff to “blow off steam”. Adora had also innocently suggested to Entrapta and Wrong Hordak that the thrusters might need an upgrade. They’d leapt at the idea and were now off somewhere doing that somehow. Catra doubted Adora even knew what a thruster was.

It was all part of their plan. Operation Get Glimmer Alone So You Can Apologize To Her, Dummy.

She stared numbly at the door. Her whole body was jittery with nerves. Unacceptable. She took a moment to compose herself, just like she always did during her final few weeks in the Horde. She almost reached up out of habit to smooth back her hair but she stopped herself. None of that shit, this was about moving forward and becoming a better person, not regressing back to old habits and shoving away her emotions.

But more than that, this was about Glimmer. Adora had tried to teach Catra the basic elements of an apology and although she hadn’t been super confident about it—there was a lot of “hmm, what would Bow say?”—Catra had gathered that a key element was that you don’t do it just for yourself, you do it for the other person. This wasn’t about Catra’s guilt, it was about Glimmer’s grief.

She slowly reached up and knocked on the door.

Knocking wasn’t really necessary since this was a shared space, but it felt wrong to just walk in and interrupt whatever Glimmer was doing with some big emotionally heavy conversation.

“Come in?” came the slightly confused response.

One more breath. In and out. _You can do this._

Catra pushed the button to open the door. Glimmer was sitting against the headboard of her bunk, knitting something with Bow’s pink yarn. She did that a lot. Catra wondered if she’d always liked to knit or if it was just a spaceship boredom pastime.

“Oh, hi Catra,” Glimmer said unenthusiastically.

“Hey Sparkles,” said Catra, without moving from the doorway. “Um, I was wondering if we could talk.”

The needles stopped clicking.

“About what?” Glimmer asked cautiously.

“About… your mom.”

Glimmer closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and carefully put the knitting aside.

“Yes, I suppose we should do that.” She drew her knees up and gestured to the foot of the bed.

Catra closed the door behind her, then made her way over and sat awkwardly on the foot of the bed with her knees up, same as Glimmer, and her tail curled around her feet.

For a few moments they sat in awkward silence, neither attempting to make eye contact.

 _It’s for her, not for me,_ Catra reminded herself again.

“I’m sorry, Glimmer,” she started.

Glimmer glanced up in slight surprise at her name.

“I know you haven’t forgiven me for the portal,” Catra continued haltingly. “And I don’t blame you. I don’t really think I deserve it. But I want you to know that I’m sorry. About your mom. What _I_ did. I… I can’t really imagine what it would be like to lose a mom since I never had one, but I do know what it’s like to lose someone you care about.” Her claws dug into the palms of her hands and her voice grew thick. “It hurts. Every time you’re reminded that they’re gone it hurts all over again. And I put you through that. I put Queen Angella in a position where she had to sacrifice herself to save the world. I _wish_ I could—” She cut herself off, remembering the mantra. “But it doesn’t matter what I wish happened. All that matters is what did happen. My actions, my choices got Angella stuck in the portal. If it wasn’t for her… my actions and my choices would have destroyed all of Etheria. I was so, _so_ stupid. And… I’m sorry.”

A silence followed her speech. Catra still didn’t look at Glimmer. She focused instead on controlling her breathing and feeling her sharp claws in her palms.

“Yeah,” Glimmer growled eventually. “It is your fault.”

The words hit Catra like an icy arrow to the chest. She glanced up and saw that Glimmer’s face was scrunched up angrily and a tear had fallen silently down her face at some point. When Catra’s head turned, Glimmer immediately buried her face in her knees and sobbed quietly.

Catra sat stock-still. Was this what was supposed to happen? She had no idea. She was so far out of her depth with this. Did she just make it worse? Should she… try to comfort Glimmer? No, that was definitely wrong. Maybe Glimmer just had to cry it out for a bit. At least she hadn’t yelled at Catra to get out yet, so she couldn’t have fucked it up too bad, right?

So Catra waited, her insides positively writhing with anxiety, until Glimmer raised her head and wiped her eyes with her white sleeve. She met Catra’s eyes steadily.

“I don’t even know what to think of you, you know that?” Her voice wavered. She didn’t seem ashamed of having cried in front of Catra. She didn’t seem to be trying to hide her weakness at all. Instead she was almost… owning it.

Catra waited, uncertain.

“It used to be so easy to hate you. Every bad choice you made just made it easier. But I don’t think you’re a bad person anymore, Catra. Don’t get me wrong—you were. You were a _really terrible_ person for a while.”

Catra shrank into herself.

“But I can see that you’re trying to be better,” Glimmer went on. “I respect that. I appreciate that you saved me from Prime. But it doesn’t erase the past. My mother is gone. I don’t even know if she’s dead or—or suffering, or what the hell happened to her after she pulled out the sword. Entrapta doesn’t even know.” Tears welled in her eyes again.

Catra swallowed and looked away. Shame burned in her face and stomach. She felt like shriveling up and dying on the spot.

“I want to forgive you, Catra.”

Catra’s ears twitched. She looked up, confused.

“You’re trying to be a better person. You’ve paid for your mistakes. You’re sorry. But I need to understand what I’m forgiving you for. You pulled that switch for a reason. I need to know why.”

Glimmer’s gaze was hard and determined. It seemed to pierce through Catra’s body and lay bare her soul. Catra couldn’t maintain it.

She hated thinking about the day she pulled the switch. The memories surfaced sometimes without her consent. They’d overwhelm her. She’d get herself back under control and find claw scratches up and down her arms and scalp and feel like she was going to puke.

But Glimmer deserved to understand why her mother was gone. It was only fair.

Catra slowly uncurled her hands and looked at her palms. Her claws had left dents in the skin and broken it in a few places.

“I was messed up,” she murmured. “Opening the portal was so important to me at the time. I knew it was wrong, I knew it might destroy the whole world, and I didn’t care. Because…”

She worked her way backward through the memories. Pulling the switch. Sending Entrapta to Beast Island. Glimmer and Shadow Weaver in the hall, holding hands while Shadow Weaver tortured her. Talking to a tied up Adora on this very ship, learning that Shadow Weaver chose Adora over her _again_. Laughing… with Scorpia at the party on this very ship. Being exiled to the Crimson Waste by Hordak. Shadow Weaver telling her the things she wanted to hear just to manipulate her into helping her escape. Seeing Adora smiling and happy with Glimmer and Bow—without her. The red lightning from the Black Garnet, the green fluid in Prime’s ship—

The pain of the memories washed over her like a great wave, pulling her under and trying to drown her. Months, years of pain hit her all at once. Her vision darkened. Nothing else was real. A guttural cry escaped her mouth. She heard Glimmer say her name but she couldn’t answer. She felt her hands moving fast—

And then they stopped suddenly. Strong hands wrapped around her wrists, immobilizing her arms. She instinctively tore free of the hands and leapt off the bed, chest heaving.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Catra, what’s going on?” The voice came from a pink-haired sparkly _princess_ , sat on the bed in front of her, eyes wide.

“ _You_ ,” Catra hissed. “You held her hand, you were with her—”

“What? With who—?”

“Shadow Weaver! Right before I pulled—”

The switch. That’s what they’d been talking about. Why were they talking about the switch?

Catra tried to remember. Her heartbeat was way too strong, way too fast. Her thoughts were sluggish.

Her vision slowly cleared as she tried to concentrate. She was with Sparkles in the bunk room on the spaceship. The good spaceship, not the bad one.

She remembered.

She had been trying to apologize about the switch.

Great. She’d probably ruined that now too.

She turned and ran on all fours toward the door, barely aware of her own movements. She had to get away, she’d ruined it—

“Wait! Are you okay?”

She stopped with her hand raised, ready to hit the button to open the door. Her tail twitched back and forth.

Her thoughts were still gradually coming back into focus. Why was she running? Glimmer wasn’t an enemy anymore.

“Are you okay?” Glimmer repeated. “Are you going to your room?”

Her instinct was to get away, to be alone, but… hadn’t she been through this enough times to realize being alone would only make it worse? She’d get buried in the memories and be consumed by the pain and hatred. She couldn’t go back to that—that’s what got her in this mess to begin with. With Sparkles here she’d have an anchor point—something to focus on to keep her in the present.

She was going to keep trying.

“I—no,” managed Catra. She let her hand fall.

She looked down at herself. She could feel tear streaks on her face and her fur was standing on end along her whole body. She jerkily wiped her face and tried to concentrate on smoothing down the fur. Her head was still jumbled so it took a few tries but she managed to somewhat get it down.

The adrenaline drained out of her as she became more aware of her surroundings. Her heart was pounding a little slower. Suddenly she was nauseous and exhausted. She turned and slowly, mechanically walked back and sat down on the edge of the bed, just out of arm’s reach from Glimmer, who was still sitting on the bed looking very concerned.

“Shadow Weaver,” Catra said hollowly. “It all comes back to her. I thought it was Adora’s fault, but she was just trying to protect me, even when she left. I wanted her and Shadow Weaver to _hurt_ …” _Like they hurt me._ “I—I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For yelling. And for being so terrible to you and Adora and Arrow Boy for so long. And for everything I did with the Horde. I was messed up. I couldn’t think right. They were still my bad decisions, but… you asked for an explanation. There it is.”

It wasn’t a very good explanation but she didn’t have the strength to elaborate right now, and frankly she was still new to the whole trusting friends thing. If she wasn’t so numb and exhausted she’d be terrified right now.

She saw Glimmer nodding slowly out of the corner of her eye.

“Okay,” said Glimmer. “Thanks. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you relive… whatever you relived.”

Catra shifted uncomfortably.

“But I think I get it now. And if it still bothers you, I’m sorry I ever trusted Shadow Weaver. That was just another mistake I made, and I paid the price for it.”

Catra nodded mutely. They sat in silence for a while. The silence wasn’t awkward anymore, just exhausted. Catra still felt like she was experiencing the world through a thick fog, but her fur had settled and her heart rate was gradually returning to normal.

“So… what now?” said Catra.

“It’ll take me some time,” Glimmer said slowly, “but I’ll forgive you.”

A slow wave of relief swept through Catra, blunted by the fog but still palpable. It mostly just felt like more nausea. She groaned and let herself fall backward on the bed.

“You’ve come a really long way,” Glimmer mused.

Catra remembered saying the exact same words to Entrapta only a few days prior. She attempted a small smile. “Yeah. I guess I have.”

“Here, do you want to learn?” Glimmer picked her knitting back up. “Bow has extra needles.”

Catra propped herself up onto her elbows and looked at the needles skeptically. Truthfully no, she really couldn’t care less about learning how to knit, but it was as good a distraction as any. She didn’t know what else she to do with herself right now anyway. She didn’t want to talk to Adora yet because she knew Adora would ask her about what happened and she wasn’t ready to relive it. She didn’t want to be alone with her memories either.

“Sure, I guess. How hard could it be?”

They were still sitting on Glimmer’s bunk when Adora came in an hour later holding her staff, all sweaty with stray hairs in her face.

“Hey guys,” she ventured. “How’s it going?”

“I’m teaching Catra to knit!” Glimmer said brightly. “She’s, uh…”

“I’m not very good at it,” Catra grinned, lifting her creation for Adora to see.

Catra didn’t think it was _terrible_. It was at least recognizable as an attempt at knitting. The red stitches were a wide variety of different sizes and some of them had been dropped and there were a couple knots that neither of them knew how they got there, but the quality had somewhat improved between the first row and the one she was currently working on.

“Oh, um, very nice,” said Adora with a slightly baffled smile.

“I think she likes the ball of yarn more than the knitting,” Glimmer teased.

“Hey!”

“Hmm, it does kind of look like a mouse,” Adora observed.

“ _Hey!_ ”

Glimmer and Adora laughed. Catra made a show of looking offended, but she didn’t really mind the banter. It was actually kind of nice.

“I’m going to have a shower,” said Adora. “I’ll be back. Kinda wanna get in on this knitting party now.”

“I don’t think Bow brought any more needles,” said Glimmer. “Maybe you can use Catra’s while she stares at the ball of yarn.”

“Okay, let it go!”

They laughed again. Catra joined in too this time, just a little.

Adora looked at Catra as her chuckles died down. She smiled that dumb smile that made Catra’s stomach do little flips. Catra smiled back.

 _I did it,_ she tried to silently say.

 _I’m proud of you,_ Adora’s eyes seemed to reply.

Glimmer and Bow were on cooking duty that evening. Actually, Glimmer and Bow were almost always on cooking duty because Adora, Catra, and Entrapta were completely useless at it and Wrong Hordak was only passable when he had specific instructions. Bow was really the only one who knew what he was doing.

“So what’s going on with you and Catra?” Bow asked once they were alone in the supply room.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Glimmer smiled as she rummaged through a box, looking for a packet of polyunsaturated fat globules.

Bow leaned on a stack of boxes beside her. “Something definitely happened while I was piloting this morning. Since when does Catra care about _knitting_? …Also, will I ever get those needles back?”

“My guess is she’ll be bored of knitting by tomorrow, but who knows. She could use a calming pastime.” Glimmer found the packet she was looking for and straightened to face Bow. “What happened is she apologized to me for opening the portal.”

A huge grin slowly spread across Bow’s face. “She did? That’s so big!”

“Yeah. It was… actually a pretty good apology. She took full responsibility.”

“Did she tell you why she opened the portal? That’s what you wanted to know, right?”

“Sort of.” Glimmer frowned. “She said she was messed up. She mentioned Shadow Weaver. Didn’t say much else. But she kinda showed me.”

“What do you mean?”

Glimmer looked at the polyunsaturated fat packet without focusing on it. “When I asked her why she did it, she tried to explain but then she got really freaked out by the memories. Her pupils got so small they basically disappeared, and her fur got all poofy and her claws came out. She seemed lost in her head.” She looked up at Bow. “She looked like she was in so much pain, Bow. I thought she was going to hurt herself…” She looked back at the packet. “I probably shouldn’t have touched her but I did, and she yelled at me and started to run away, but then… she stopped and came back. And she said she did it because she was messed up. But what I got from it is that she did it because she was in an incredible amount of pain. And she does regret it, she’s working as hard as she can to be a better person.”

“You forgive her.”

“Yeah. I do. And I think Mom would too.”

**Author's Note:**

> hhhhhh this was rly hard to write
> 
> it was a super ambitious idea for me so lmk how i did, particularly with characterization cuz i’m not sure if i got it right


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